Cambridge Building Society helps tenants realize their dream of owning their own home

The film It’s A Wonderful Life, starring James Stewart as a friendly but unhappy mortgage lender on Christmas Eve, is a perennial favorite. Now the Cambridge Building Society is trying to harness that spirit, making the tearjerker one of the best-loved seasonal films since it was first shown in 1946.

Young couple Sophie Rhead and Jamie Bladen hope their dream of living in their own home with their four-month-old daughter Darcie has come closer together after their lives were changed by an innovative plan from Cambridge.

Like millions of other young couples, they struggled to save enough for the down payment to buy a home.

Now that they have been selected for the plan, they are renting a building from Cambridge. However, unlike a conventional landlord, the housing association will give them back a large part of their rent to help them get into the housing market.

Thanks to this research, the couple are now looking at three- to four-bedroom houses, rather than small apartments, and hope to have a mortgage in place by next Christmas. “It sounds cliché, but it changed our lives,” says Sophie (22).

The scheme, called Rent To Home, was set up in 2019 and currently covers just seven properties in Cambridgeshire and West Suffolk. However, the mutual fund wants to expand its offering to 25 properties over the next three years and says it is keen to work with the government or other lenders to help set up similar schemes.

The aim is to help first-time buyers who can afford to rent but cannot access Mom and Dad’s Bank for a down payment on a mortgage. Applicants are selected by ballot, after which they move into a newly renovated building for one to three years.

Once they are ready to purchase a home, 70 percent of the rent they paid will be returned to them to help with the security deposit, provided they take out a mortgage with the Cambridge.

Potential buyers must meet a range of criteria, including connections to the area, such as living or working locally. They must also have a ‘modest income’.

Couples applying must earn between £36,000 and £80,000 a year between them. The upper annual income limit for single applicants is £60,000.

The housing association has set up the scheme to tackle the issue of affordability in an area with some of the highest house prices in the country.

“As far as we know it’s unique,” ​​said Carole Charter, Chief Commercial Officer at Cambridge. The program typically attracts twenty applicants per location. So far it has rented homes to twelve people. Nine are still renting and three have bought their own home.

“It’s part of us giving back to the community in which we all live and work,” Charter said. “It’s part of our purpose, of what we do.” There was one major problem when the plan was launched.

Safe: Sophie Rhead and Jamie Bladen with Darcie

‘People thought it was too good to be true. They were looking for the catch. It took us a long time to explain to them that there was no catch,” Charter said.

‘Nothing is more fun than seeing and hearing the tenants. We have had them tell us that this plan has changed their lives.”

She says the lender would be ‘keen’ to work with other lenders or the government to create similar schemes.

Sophie and Jamie, 24, each lived with their parents before learning of the plan.

“We wanted our own space,” said Sophie, an administrator at a commercial property company who is on maternity leave, adding: “the prices around Cambridge are just ridiculous money.” They were surprised to be selected for the program.

“We never win anything, we’re not those people,” says Jamie, who works for British Gas. Sophie says: ‘It was like a movie moment.’

Within a month they had moved into their rental house in Northstowe, a town eight miles outside Cambridge. The couple hope that by next Christmas they will be at the stage where they have made an offer on a new property.

Marriage is ‘certainly on the horizon’. For now, they are enjoying their first festive season as a family. Sophie says: ‘Putting up the Christmas tree with the three of us was so special.

‘We have always wanted to have a family with a dog and a nice garden and that now feels more within reach.’